Songs for the Noble and Lost
by The Bride of Bronn
Summary: Donna Noble had lost all her memories of the Doctor, and was only able to remember in dreams. Now married with a son, she befriends an immortal who used to have a strong connection with the Doctor as a young boy back in Gallifrey. Donna wants to reunite with the Doctor again but at what cost? Crossover with Neil Gaiman's The Sandman
1. I Dusk

******Notes: **_This is an experimental crossover fanfiction with Neil Gaiman's_ The Sandman_. I wrote another crossover called "Down by the waters" and I've been playing with this idea that the Endless have been very invested with the Doctor since he was a child, especially Dream. Your enjoyment of this fiction will be enhanced if you have read Gaiman's graphic novel. I plan to write some drabbles with the other companions meeting an Endless at one point while traveling with the Doctor. For now, there's Donna, because it was such an injustice that she forgot everything about the Doctor. This work would be cathartic for Donna fans who want Donna to return to the picture. I know it's like that for me while I was writing this. In which case, enjoy reading! __This fic is also dedicated to my friend Elena for Christmas 2013._

* * *

**SONGS FOR THE NOBLE AND LOST**

**I. Dusk**

* * *

An uncomfortably good-looking bloke bought Donna a drink as soon as she sat on a stool inside a pub that's overcrowded in a hideous fashion for a supposedly mellow Sunday night. She looked at the pint with suspicion, as if she was actually offered drugs in liquid form. And with the kind of locale hanging about this place, it's not unlikely.

The holiday cheer didn't feel like a good enough excuse for Donna, personally. Adults her age shouldn't spend their nights on a sleazy joint like this for the promise of unlimited beer and free margaritas. But she shouldn't judge (since when did she become her mother?) But nights like this in a place so depressing made her even more thankful that a modest, loving man has put a ring on her finger at last.

"Happily married with kids" is something a gal like Donna has given up on becoming since she hit her thirties. But it happened so suddenly that she forgot why she even worried about it before. As kooky and pathetic as it may seem, getting hitched to a husband so good in every way, and giving birth to their son were her proudest accomplishments because honest to Jove it finally shut her mum up. That was probably the best bit about married life. Now her mum has other things to criticize; like how she's raising Smith (and why she even gave the boy a last name) and Donna's hair.

Instinctively, Donna ran her fingers quickly through the curly tresses of her new hairstyle. Her mum said it made her look "poofy" and that it called attention to her chin way too much (and whatever on Santa's name that even means, she has no way of knowing).

Donna surveyed the place and spotted the uncomfortably good-looking bloke who raised a glass at her direction as if to acknowledge that it is indeed he who wanted to get her drunk. She pushed herself off the stool and lifted the pint as she began to approach him. She had to shove past the singles standing around the place just to get to the table. Narrowing her eyes at him, Donna barked. "Oi!"

He still grinned at her even if it was apparent to the both of them that she did not appreciate his gesture and the intent behind it.

"You can have this back," she pushed the pint of cold beer into his grasp.

"Turning down a drink with me just 'cuz you're married?" he was still smiling.

"Oh, I get it. You think you're Mr. Slick, aren't you?" Donna shot back. "Don't have a problem about hitting on a married woman at all? Is that what you're about then?"

"I meant no disrespect, girlie—"

"You listen now and you listen good," Donna placed her hand on the table and leaned in so he could feel the full measure of her glare. "I'm no girlie and I'm certainly not going to be yours either. It's gonna take a lot more than cheap beer to make me come around and even then you still can't afford me, Mr. Sleaze."

"I think I could rise to the challenge," he remarked as he made a move to grab her hand from the table. Donna would have punched him with the other but was fortunately spared from getting into a brawl when a man came out of nowhere and stepped in just in time to grab the smug bastard's wrist and twist it. The bastard howled.

"Now see here, laddie," the man was saying as he twisted the wrist. "It's only right to respect your elders. Now apologize to the lady."

Donna would've thanked him but she realized that his supposedly chivalrous declaration was insulting. "Elder? Are you trying to help me or make me feel even worse?"

She slapped the back of her rescuer's head. The impact made him let go of the other man who was smart enough not to engage further and instead ran out of the pub.

Her rescuer took the pint of beer and gulped it down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Donna stared at him now. His unruly red hair was more orange next to her tamer color. His beard was badly maintained as well. "Blimey," he remarked, cocking his head to the side as he gazed at her. "You're not easy to please, are you, missus?"

"It's Donna," she emphasized. "Not girlie, or elder or lady. It's just Donna."

"_**Donna**_** is the Italian term for 'lady,"** Another man appeared behind the ginger one. He was tall and thin in ways that seem to defy the impossible. He was also cloaked in a large dark coat of some sort and all he had to do was to spare everyone in the room with a dismissive glance and they all stopped snooping and went about their own business again.

As soon as the crowd dispersed, the ginger guy turned to his intimidating companion and said. "I don't think she will appreciate any dry rhetoric from you, Murphy."

"Well, then. Glad to hang around here long enough to know that this was a complete waste of my free time," Donna announced to no one in particular. "Gents," she tipped an invisible hat towards them and then she turned away. But the ginger guy interjected.

"Do you mind starting over, Donna? That wasn't how I want all of us to get acquainted. I hope such an ill-fated event won't sour this opportunity for you."

"What opportunity?" Donna crossed her arms.

"To make new friends," the ginger guy had a clumsy smile as if he wasn't sure if he should smile. But it made him look harmless and sincere nevertheless.

"I got plenty of that," Donna rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not a weirdo."

"Oh, yes. You're a pleasant cherry so how could I _not_ believe that?" the ginger guy stepped forward and extended his hand. "Hello, Donna. I'm Hob. It's a pleasure."

Donna kept her eyes on his face. "I won't be so sure about that, Hob." But she gave in and shook his hand anyway. And then she glanced at his murky companion.

"This here is Murphy." Hob patted the tall man's shoulder. Donna didn't think that Murphy liked how familiar and casual Hob is acting. She could see the way his unreadable eyes flicker almost irritably while Hob's hand kept patting him.

"You probably need to stop that," she pointed out.

"What? Me and Murphy go way back." But Hob did take her advice and removed his hand from his companion's shoulder. He gestured at the bartender to get another drink.

"Well, I should go." Donna said again but her feet disobeyed. And Murphy was staring so intently at her that it's giving her the heebie-jeebies.

"But you won't," Hob sat on where the smug bastard was sitting earlier and crossed his legs. He took out a cigar from his vest and lit it. "Come on. No need to stand on ceremony, both of you! Pull up a chair and drink."

The bartender himself walked over to place a bottle of cognac and some champagne glasses on their table. That was odd. Regardless, Donna let out an exasperated sigh and pulled a chair. Before she could even sit on it, Murphy was already seated next to her, looking still as calm water. She tried not to look at him anymore.

"So Donna," Hob began. "How's life?"

"What?" she didn't mean to go all defensive again but this was just confusing. "You haven't met me before or anything so why are you asking me that like we've been friends for a while and now you're just checking up on me?"

"Bloody chestnuts on a fire," Hob remarked, hiccupping a bit. "I had no idea you're so insufferable. I wish I was warned."

"Well, color me shocked, you don't know me at all." Donna intervened. "On that pleasant note, you can go right ahead and stop assuming things about me."

"All I did was ask about your life, Donna."

"My life is good," Donna announced with a tone of finality that also sounded like she's rejecting any kind of interrogation about it.

Hob winked at her though. "But it could be better, yeah?"

Donna doesn't want to talk to this Hob person anymore. But she didn't think Murphy is a stunning conversationalist either. Still, she found herself asking him. "What sort of business would bring a pair of you loonies in this place?"

"**Our own,"** Murphy answered her briefly with an out-of-place courtesy that was even worse than Hob's easygoing presence.

"Well, all right." Donna poured herself some cognac and gulped it down once. She then pushed herself off the chair. "That's it for making new friends. Bye."

"We need your help, Donna." Hob spoke softly now. "We wouldn't be having this conversation if it's nothing serious and if you're not the person we're looking for."

Donna has had enough of this cryptic talk though. She buttoned up her coat and zipped it up. "So sorry, gents, but asking a stranger for help won't always work," she sassed. "Not everyone is a good Samaritan who's ready to lend some poor sap a hand."

"**You're not as cynical as you pretend to be, Donna," **it was Murphy who spoke to her now and he stated it as if it was an indisputable fact she can't argue with.

Donna hated him already. "Piss off, would you?"

She was walking out of the pub now. She didn't care to look behind her to see if they're going to follow after her. Thankfully enough, they didn't.

So much for being the person they're looking for.

But Donna did linger outside for a while to gaze at the thick sheet of snow that covered the ground beneath her boots. There was something about the cold that was somehow consoling. She closed her eyes now and listened to the silence as it reached out and soothed her old bones. Opening her eyes again, Donna started to leave the place. It's a Sunday night and she should have just stayed home with her family from the start. Her mum is going to say a couple of nice things about her wandering off again. Fantastic.

With only twenty yards away from the pub, Donna couldn't resist looking back.

Nothing. Just a quaint pub with yellow lights and a whole world she's not a part of.

It shouldn't have made her sad but it did.

"My life is good," Donna repeated quietly to herself as she walked through the snow.

* * *

"But it could be better, yes?"

Donna stared at the sandcastle before her and silently agreed but she's not going to let some stupid raven make her labor through making another one just because this castle wasn't good enough for either of them. Donna looked across the sunset on the horizon and decided that she needed to rest. "I don't know, Matthew. It's kind of the best I could do."

"That's not true, toots." Matthew the raven remarked. "You can do so much more."

"I'm tired, Matthew, all right? I'm just tired. So leave me alone!" she waved him off but he simply flew away from her and landed on top of the tallest tower of her sandcastle.

"Don't go blaming me for your shortcomings now," Matthew said.

"Please," Donna raised an eyebrow. "Like you'd know anything about it."

Matthew haughtily walked around the tower in circle and let out what sounded like laughter to her . "There you go again, projecting your failures on me."

"Stop calling me a failure! You're just a dumb bird! I don't need to take this from you!" Donna took a fistful of sand and threw it at him.

* * *

The snowball collided with Donna's forehead. She blinked through the white chunks and felt her cheeks burn up as she heard laughter around her. That grating, beautiful sound came from Smith, her four-year old. Donna roared at him and chased him for a while in their living room until she managed to hold him by his tiny waist and lift him up. He giggled. She laid him gently down the cushion and threatened to eat him by using her "scary voice" as she roared, "Mommy's hungry! Num-num-num-num!"

Smith let out another high-pitched giggle while she nibbled happily on his fragile, sweet-smelling belly. "Mommy's a fat monster!" he shouted.

"Oh, I'm fat? Then what do you call these plump little legs of yours?" She tickled his feet and he kicked at her, snorting and laughing as he shook in her grasp.

Finally, Smith made a peace sign to tell her he surrendered.

Donna chuckled and helped him to sit up. "You just never learn, do you?"

"You just never learn, do you?" Smith shot back, imitating his mother's voice. He then pointed at her and said in the most authoritative tone he could muster. "Do not forget this night, peasant, for you shall cross swords with the Mighty Smith once again!"

Donna bit her bottom lip so she won't explode. He's just so cute when he's acting all tough and strong. "All right, you great warrior, you!" she swooped in and carried him on her shoulders. "What would his majestic warriorship have for supper?"

"Sausages and eggs, peasant!"

"But your majestic warriorship, you've already had that for breakfast."

"Silence, peasant! Cook me my meal or suffer death!"

Donna was laughing now. "All right, my little warrior, as you command."

* * *

"No, don't kill me!" Matthew was trying to flap his wings to get away from her but Donna was clutching him in place. "Please don't squeeze me so hard, you crazy bitch!"

"Then don't try to claw me again, you ugly piece of—"

"Donna!"

They both looked up to see Abel stumbling towards them as he tried to run. It was clear that such an activity took too much effort for him because he was already coughing and wheezing with just a few steps. Donna felt sorry for him so she tried to meet him halfway. The sand today was particularly hard to walk in. Her feet kept sinking. She would have grabbed the jog of water that's secured on the belt around her waist. The water would help harden the sand if she poured some on it. But that would mean she needed to release Matthew and she's still pretty pissed at the things he said about her earlier.

"Look, Donna, I'm sorry." Matthew was saying. "I don't know why I snapped at you like that. But let bygones be bygones, toots. We're mates, you and me."

"Mates don't say cruel things to each other!" Donna shot back.

"Let me make it up to you, Donna." Matthew pleaded. "You know I'm good for it."

"You always say that but you never get me anywhere and I'm still stuck on this beach!" Donna snapped at him. "You want to prove you're as good as you say you are then you know what to do. Take me someplace else."

"But where do you want to go? This is your landscape. I'm merely a passenger here."

"More like a trespasser!" Donna insisted. "Now swear to me we're going away somewhere less desert and sand and where I can actually have fun."

"I can't control that!" Matthew answered, shaking in her clutch. "This is your dream, Donna. If you want to go somewhere else then change your landscape."

"Don't you think I've tried?" Donna finally let him go. The raven hurriedly flew away but hovered above her as Donna took the jog from her side and poured down the water. The sand immediately hardened from where she stood. She walked it until she reached Abel. The older man was short and stout and she can't help but feel sorry for him all the time. She wrapped her arms around him to lift him up.

"Please, Matthew," Donna said. "If I always come to this—what do you call it?"

"The Dreaming, Miss Donna," Abel answered.

"Yes, that. Then I don't want to spend the rest of my time building bloody sandcastles all day!" Donna was tempted to throw something at the bird again but decided against it. "If you meant it when you said that we're mates then please."

"But where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere but this dry place," Donna looked around and then she paused. She knew she shouldn't push for it (that was Matthew's first rule since she arrived here) but she just couldn't help herself. "If you could just lead me out of here, I guess I can start searching for him by myself then." She could see Matthew was about to protest but she went on. "No, please, don't tell me I won't see him again. I refuse to accept that!"

Abel was holding her hand now. "We're not lying to you, Donna. The sooner you accept the way things are, the better things will get."

"And how could things ever get better again for me?" Donna shook Abel's hand away but instantly felt bad about it. She regarded Abel with a softer look as she explained. "I can't stay stranded here because I don't belong here. I'm supposed to be traveling by his side. And if he can't come back for me like you said then that only means he's in danger and I have to help him. So please, Matthew. Please, Abel. I need to see him again."

"It's impossible, Donna."

She glared at them and insisted. "Nothing's impossible with the Doctor!"

"So sorry, Donna," Abel tried to hold her hand again. He gave it a squeeze.

"Don't." Donna warned him as she felt her eyes tear up for the first time since she got here. "Don't you dare say it because it's not true. He couldn't have done that to me."

Abel opened his mouth but no words came out. Matthew perched on his shoulder and said it for him. "The Doctor's gone, Donna. He left. I mean, just look at where you are now."

As Donna allowed herself to gaze out the ocean, Matthew followed suit and then he added. "You're lifetimes and many worlds away from the man you call the Doctor. It's time you accept and live with that, Donna. There's nothing else."

She withdrew her hand from Abel's grasp. "No. There's always something."

Without a warning, Donna started to run.

* * *

Donna kept spotting the man who introduced himself as Hob a few more times in random places for some weeks now. She thought that he must have been stalking her but it would seem like she's the one who keeps finding him in these places. Hob would be surrounded by other people, drinking and laughing and sharing stories with them. Other times he would be on a corner somewhere, reading a book all by himself. In all these instances, he never seems to know that Donna was there and she realized that she may have been the one stalking him which is bollocks because she's not even aware of it.

'A lack of awareness while stalking' should hold up beautifully in court, sure.

The coincidences, if she takes them as a whole, are almost terrifying. It's as if the universe wants them to meet again but Donna doesn't believe in such nonsense. In fact, why would a larger than life entity like the universe even bother sending her creepy messages about some stranger she just met at a pub one time? That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Besides, it's not like Donna is anything special.

Keeping her pragmatic sense of handling things intact, Donna ignored these baffling coincidences and went on with her quiet happy life with her husband and son. She went to the office, bought groceries every end of the week, pretended to go to the gym, gossiped with her hairdresser, sneaked drinks during lunch break with friends at work—all those wonderfully repetitive things that average folk are preoccupied with. Since meeting the love of her life and with Smith in the picture now, Donna has learned to love her life for what it simply is, even the most distasteful bits that get under her skin. It's fine because her life is good. It doesn't need to get better. She has Smith.

He's everything in her life that's special.

It was a Thursday evening right after Donna just managed to put Smith to sleep when the man named Hob appeared on her doorstep and asked for her help. She reacted like any normal person would in that situation who met this mysterious stranger again when she swore to forget him: she slammed the door on his face and grabbed the phone to dial the cops. But Hob insisted that it's a matter of grave importance.

"Donna, please!" He was still out there but now he stopped knocking. Donna thought he might be leaving now but she could still see the outline of his shadow from the crack beneath the door. She held the phone, ready to punch in the numbers when she heard him speak again and a little louder this time. "It's about the Doctor."

Donna cowered away, stepping backward as silently as she could.

"What are you on about? Doctor who?"

* * *

"Doctor!"

Donna ran and ran until she was convinced that she's just going around in circles.

"Doctor!" she kept shouting at the air but the call hardly echoed. Everything around her was still made of sand and she was more lost than before. But Donna wasn't discouraged. She didn't stop running or trying to find a way to get out. "DOCTOR!"

She must have hit a rock because now she's tumbling down a slope. The sand was so soft that the crash didn't really hurt and yet Donna felt like everything in her body ached.

Sitting there in the overwhelming stretch of desert, Donna called for the Doctor again. But it's becoming clear to her that no matter how long and how loud she shouted for him, he's never going to answer her back. The Doctor's gone. The Doctor left.

"Doctor, please." Donna covered her eyes with her hands and wept. "I'm not supposed to be here. I was going to travel with you forever. The Doctor-Donna…"

She kept on whispering their names together in vain. But Donna couldn't run anymore. Her legs have gone numb and her eyes are blurry with tears and sand.

* * *

"What doctor are you talking about?" Against her better judgment, Donna opened the door. "Our pediatrician? Did something happen to Dr. Scott?"

"No, don't know him. But I'm sure he's just dandy—"

"Well, great then!" Without warning, Donna clutched him by his lapels and slammed him against the wall. "Now look here, you slimy, creepy little..._ginger_—!"

"Really? Have you looked in the mirror—"

"Oh, don't get cute with me! Now tell me why I keep seeing you around because I refuse to accept that those are just coincidences because they're far too plenty and consistent to be coincidences! And then you just show up in my house like this! What am I supposed to think?" Donna tightened her hold on him. "And don't even deny it!"

Hob just stared at her for a few seconds. And then he placed his hands gently on top of hers which are still balled into fists. "Oh, Donna."

"What?"

"I didn't know." Hob had a strange expression in his face as if something unseen was hurting him. Donna loosened her grip. "I should have known. I just thought that..."

"You just thought what?" Donna released him and stepped away.

"I'm sorry," Hob was shaking all over and this scared her. "I thought that if I found you then...I never should have asked for your help. I shouldn't have come here."

"Then go away! And I better not cross paths with you again, Hob or whoever you really are!" Donna shoved him off her doorway and out in the street. She didn't dare risk it again so she ran back to her house and locked every door. She then rushed to her son's bedroom to see if he woke up and got scared to find himself alone in the dark but Smith was still sleeping. Donna sat by his bedside and didn't leave until the next morning.

* * *

She could have been crying for ages and she wouldn't have known. Everything in this landscape remained unchanged but Donna wasn't scared anymore. She felt no fatigue or hunger or thirst; just the emptiness, and it was swallowing her soul.

* * *

It's been two weeks and Hob never showed up again. She didn't see him anywhere anymore either. This was good. But something unsettling was still at the pit of her stomach and it haunted her. She could push it away no matter how hard she tried. It kept weighing her down until her mum noticed and inquired if she's been eating right.

"Look, hon, enough with your reckless dieting. We both know you're not made to be that fit." To show her concern, her mum looked after Smith for a week so Donna could take some extra time to rest after work. She even cooked the family meals which her mum argued are healthier options than the processed garbage that Donna's been accustomed to.

For her part, Donna didn't mind. Her mum's presence was quite reassuring and their conversations kept her mind distracted. The only problem was Smith because the boy was surprisingly inquisitive for his age and Donna didn't want him to worry about her. It's not a child's job to daunt over his parent, so she agreed to switch schedules with her husband Joey so he would spend more time with Smith while Donna stayed over once in a while at her mum's during the weekends.

Her grandfather was more than happy to spend some time with her again. Donna could feel him growing weaker each day but he's still the same old tough bear. He's also just as obsessed with stars and aliens and the likes and Donna would indulge him by listening to his latest theory about extraterrestrial life-form in some distant planet. But even with these distractions, Donna would still think about Hob and the man he was with at that pub—that tall and thin apparition in dark cloak. The one he called Murphy.

Donna would lie in her mum's bunk at night, trying to remember what Murphy looked like. But the moment a clearer picture would settle in, she'd be fast asleep.

* * *

It began as a low hum at first that it was easy not to notice. But there was no mistaking what it was though Donna could not remember where she heard it before.

Still surrounded by sand, she tried to put the pieces of this dream together. She was no longer crying by now, but the stain of dry tears on her cheeks reminded her of the ache in her chest that dulled the moment the rational side of her began to process some things. Matthew and Abel were nowhere in sight and Donna wished she didn't run off like that earlier. They were the only friends she had. She almost thought about him again and that wasn't good because the anger was beginning to drown out other emotions. Donna didn't think she was ever capable of such rage. But then again, she never really thought she was capable of anything special until the Doctor came along and showed her how.

She's dwelling on him again and it's pissing her off. She shouted lovely profanities instead and didn't care who heard because everything is better than this suffocating silence.

And then there it was.

That song.

Donna couldn't have been mistaken. There's definitely singing but she doesn't know where in this stretch of desert it's coming from. It's like a chorus of some ballad but it had no words. And Donna heard it a long time ago. But how long has it really been since she was stuck in this place? Matthew said she's dreaming. Does she even want to wake up?

The singing persisted. Donna crawled around to follow the sound but the more she tried to locate it, the more it would come from different directions. She's had enough of this.

She stood up and shouted. "Bugger off, you incessant singing pieces of sh—"

She squealed when she realized what she had stepped on. Donna knew better than to move or the quicksand will only continue to devour her. She steadied herself and tried to breathe normally. Closing her eyes, Donna focused on waking the hell up.

Something landed in front of her. She could hear the sound of wings. _Matthew_?

When Donna opened her eyes, a very pale thin woman was watching her. Her alabaster skin seemed luminescent next to the yellow sand. She was dressed in a dark dress and wore a pair of purple chucks. The sight of those shoes only reminded Donna of everything tragic and wrong in this place. Donna moved to the left just an inch and the quicksand sucked her in again. She almost cursed but then the other woman spoke.

"You're not really dying, you know. So you better stop praying for it."

"What are you?" Donna shot back. "And how would you even know that? Are you a passenger like the others? Well, lady, quit trespassing! This is my damn dream landscape!"

"You summoned me here yourself. You prayed for me."

"I'm not much of a religious person." Donna remarked. "You an angel of some sort?"

"No."

Donna waited for her to introduce herself but the pale woman didn't say anything anymore. At least Matthew and Abel were courteous. "Well, come on. Who are you?"

"You look stuck," the woman ignored her question and simply pointed out the obvious. Donna wished she could come closer so she could punch her skinny arse.

The pale woman sighed. "I should help but that wouldn't be polite to my—"

"HELPING ME IS THE MOST POLITE THING TO DO, YOU WANKER!"

The pale woman chuckled. "You really do have quite a lip on you, Donna Noble."

"YOU DON'T GET TO CALL ME BY NAME IF I DON'T KNOW YOURS."

"Alas, I'm nameless." The pale woman stepped on the quicksand but it didn't suck her in. It even looked like the whole thing was avoiding her purple chucks. Donna was now terrified so she kept her mouth shut because she knew she had a tendency to blabber on to hide her fear. She was forced to just glare at the other woman and stay still.

"I think Matthew was able to cover everything, starting with the basic knowledge," the pale woman kept talking to Donna as if they had all the time in the world. "You know where you are but not how you came to be. You've lost someone and you're now coming to terms of accepting that he's not coming back. But it's too early to give up on life, Donna. It's easy to think that I'm the answer that could set you free from this pain. But you're wrong." The pale woman approached her and placed her hand under Donna's chin.

Something about the way the pale woman's dark sad eyes looked into Donna's that made the fear disappear. "I'm not taking you because life is just about to begin for you again, actually. So consider it as a gift. You can start over or dwell on the loss. But I strongly advice that you stop seeking me out because there's a time for endings and there's a time for beginnings and though they tend to intersect more often than you think, they're still intrinsically separate events." She withdrew her hand away from Donna.

"But I think you need to start making real progress," the pale woman leaned in and whispered something into Donna's ear. "So call for the Shaper. He's the one to pray for."'

* * *

Hob Gadling knows a thing or two about regrets. But you don't have to be an undying pseudo-immortal being to know that. You just have to be human.

He lived sufficiently long enough to start believing that he's no longer a part of the human race but Hob found that he has actually gotten closer to people in general even if he knew he will outlive them all. He even learned to love more fearlessly and appreciate brevities in every form because there's something about knowing that he's the last man standing that makes him want to buy everyone drinks and make sure they're all having a jolly time before the shops close. But centuries of evading death does have its drawbacks. Hob lost people as frequently as he abandoned some. He saw every conceivable ideology or empire perish or rise again. And the best part (or worst, depending on his mood or his choice of drink that day) is he still feels like he hasn't experienced everything yet.

He still feels like he can't die just yet.

But then there's Donna Noble. Thinking about what she had lost that day breaks his heart all over again. He wasn't around when stuff with her happened but he knew enough of her story. World's End couldn't stop telling it. People who hear the story would grieve Donna Noble like she was their own wife, daughter or sister. Hob traveled back to London just to see if in spite that tragedy Donna Noble still lives. And she very much is alive and what a beautiful life she has found herself into. She's got a husband who adores her, a kid who worships her, and a mum and a granddad who kept a secret to protect her even if just the mere contact of such a secret kills them inside. From afar, Hob envied Donna's life. It was simple and ordinary but it was so beautiful. It was complete as long as she didn't know there were pieces of it that were destroyed from a past she should never remember.

Hob couldn't have known about all of this if he didn't get tangled with the Doctor awhile back. The last of the Time Lords was a pain in the arse but he had a petite brunette "assistant" who keeps him company and she reminded Hob of his third wife whom he got along with the best. If he hadn't met the Doctor, he never would have been so curious. He never would have asked Murphy about him and Murphy wouldn't have mentioned the other assistants. Hob couldn't visit Rose Tyler in a parallel universe. Martha Jones is a Torchwood agent and Hob doesn't like secret organizations in general, and Amelia Pond was married to a nice boy called Rory and they have a daughter Hob doesn't want to meet again, at least for the time being. So all that was left to obsess about was Donna Noble, and he wouldn't have come to her if he knew about her story from World's End.

When he met her the first time at her doorstep (he needed help to contact the Doctor), she acted rather angrily towards him. She mentioned about seeing him around all the time and that they couldn't have been coincidences. Hob didn't know what to make of that. The weirdest part is that she doesn't even know the Doctor. And that's when it occurred to Hob. He made a mistake. He never should have sought Donna out. That's when he stopped by World's End and heard her tragic story for the first time. And then he traveled back to London to make amends but arrived at the wrong time, apparently. He met Donna for the second time at the pub which turned out to be the first time for her (and that's when he understood why she reacted the way she did when he showed up to her doorstep). But he did need Donna's help. Something is about to happen to the Doctor; something that requires all hands on board.

Murphy certainly wasn't against talking to Donna. He didn't have to say it but Hob deduced that Murphy had a special connection to the Doctor and that he's just as curious to see Donna Noble in the flesh himself. Hob didn't mean to get caught in a complicated mess such as this but that's the trouble about living for so long.

Hob knows exactly when death is coming for someone he's close to, and he needed to make sure that the poor sap knows what he's about to step into.


	2. II Dawn

**II. Dawn**

* * *

"What do I even say—?" Donna hasn't even finished her sentence when the pale woman disintegrated into thin air. That was properly disturbing, so Donna started screaming for her life. She couldn't help but wriggle so the quicksand pulled and pulled at her again.

"SHAPER!" she felt ridiculous shouting that word but now is not the time to feel bashful. "Oi, Shaper! Whatever you're supposed to be! Please help me!"

"**I've been here for awhile, Noble one."**

"Wh—?" Donna looked around for the source of that voice and then she realized that it was coming from below her. It was as if the sand was speaking to her. "O…kay. If you're about to make an entrance, you better not come from beneath me because I swear to all the living gods I WILL KICK YOU! In the nose! I will kick you in the nose, you—"

"**I don't respond well to threats, especially violent ones."**

"Sorry, okay, sorry. I wouldn't kick you. Not in the nose. Not anywhere, really. It's just…I'm scared, all right? Scared and alone and I'm getting sucked by sand. I'm usually more composed, you know. Actually, not really. I'm not the gentlest of girls and you probably know that already. Oh god," With nothing else to hold onto, Donna wrapped her arms around herself and tried to keep still. "Listen, please. I don't know what's going on. The lady earlier—she told me I couldn't even die. And I—_oh god_, I _actually_ considered dying. I'm tired and I'm running out of options. So, please…" Donna shut her eyes tightly and felt the tears sting. "Please, whatever you are and wherever you are, please help me. I don't know who else to turn to, Shaper. There's just me and you here!"

The quicksand around her collapsed and turned into water. She squealed and fell into it. Swimming desperately, Donna moved her arms around her in fevered motions.

"**I'm here, Noble one. Give me your hand."**

"Whe—?" Donna choked out the water as she kept her chin up. She kicked her legs beneath her and tried to search for the voice with her hands. She closed her eyes and kept reaching out. And that's when she felt someone's fingers interlacing with hers, and then she felt herself rising from the water. She kicked some more and ended up colliding against someone she believed is the owner of the voice. But before she could figure out the rest, she crashed against solid ground. When she opened her eyes, she realized that she was on top of someone and she quickly jerked back and looked above her to see the night sky.

"It never gets dark," she muttered to herself. "In the ocean, there's always the sunset." Donna looked down and saw cobblestoned ground and realized that she's not in her dream landscape anymore. She glanced back at the person who she crashed into.

It was a man—well, he was certainly male. He had a long dark cloak and there are red and orange designs on its hem that look like they're on fire. His eyes were hard to see but she knew he was watching her. She opened her mouth to say something but he spoke up first. **"Impressive. You were able to bring us here because the bond between the two of you is that strong." **He continued to hold Donna's gaze as he walked toward her.

She backed away to a corner. "What landscape is this now?"

"**We're not in the Dreaming." **He made a sweeping, almost dismissive glance from his left to right and then added. **"This is Venice, probably around the 1600s."**

There's something about the way he's acting and saying things that vaguely reminded Donna about the Doctor. How irritating. "WHY THE BLOODY HELL ARE WE HERE?"

"**Must you scream **_**all the time**_**?"**

"I'm scared, OKAY? I ALREADY TOLD YOU—"

"**Take my hand, Noble one. And I'll explain everything when we get back to my realm." **He reached out for her and Donna had no choice but to reach back. As soon as their hands touched, they were back in the desert. Donna let his hand go and could only stare at him, wide-eyed and absolutely annoyed.

"WHAT—"

"**The screaming, please. There is no need for that."**

"Sorry," Donna cleared her throat. She is starting to lose voice anyway. "But…uh…explain?"

"**Where do I begin?"**

Donna raised her eyebrows at him in disbelief. "Oh yeah, where to start? Let's see. Well, how about the BLOODY quicksand? Lady in purple CHUCKS? Venice?" She did a second-take of him. "Your wardrobe? Are you naked under that?" She immediately regretted the moment she uttered the last question so she covered her mouth with a hand.

"**It depends on how you perceive me."**

"What? D'you mean you can be naked if I imagine it or something? That's bonkers!" Donna laughed but she could tell from the expression of his face that he doesn't have a sense of humor underneath that large cloak. "O…kay. Please. Don't be…naked?"

The man simply stared. **"Is that a request?"**

Donna closed her eyes. "I'm imagining you wearing something, oh, I don't know, a shirt and some jeans?" She peeked at him with one eye. "That helps, yes?"

"**I suppose it has," **the man took off his cloak and Donna sighed in relief that he is wearing what she just described—which is eerie. **"We're at your landscape, Donna. Whatever you conjure, it will materialize."**

"Great. I'm still dreaming. Thanks."

"**The quicksand was your creation too, Donna."**

Donna made a face. "Oh, really? I just imagined myself getting sucked in by a—wait, that…actually makes sense." She looked away almost sheepishly and began to piece everything together as she muttered to herself. "All right, so I was with the Doctor in one of our travels, and we may have hit turbulence somehow where I knock myself out really hard. And then bam! I end up in the Dreaming! So Matthew and Abel and weird hipster lady—I 'conjured' those too, yeah? That also means you can't be real either!" As if to prove a point, Donna poked him on the chest. Repeatedly. Gently at first. And then rhythmically like the song she'd been hearing earlier. "But I can touch you. You're solid."

"**Donna,"** the man placed his hand on top of hers which forced Donna to look at him in the eye. With this kind of closer proximity, Donna was able to glimpse at those eyes.

And found that they were not eyes at all.

She let out a quick yelp and backed away from him. "Now I couldn't have conjured that!" She pointed at his face. "You got some wicked pair of stars for eyes, mister, and I don't mean that as a compliment or some sort of pick-up line."

"**I wish I didn't have to meet you under these circumstances,"** the man was speaking to her in a hushed tone now. **"But I suppose we never would have met at all unless you cross my realm in this way." **He took a step forward. Donna looked at his feet and realized they were bare. His pale toes against the yellow sand were almost painful to look at. She tried to pay attention to him as he went on.** "What we're standing on are soft places, Noble one. This is where you live out your days when you dream. You come here through a beach with an unending sunset, is that correct?"**

Donna nodded, unable to say something else to make light of the situation.

"**Matthew and Abel are my servants. I've tasked them to guide you through the transition and it's been hard. Your dream landscape reflects your state of mind. In your case, it's the last thing you remember before the Doctor left you."**

When she heard his name again, she felt like she wanted to punch something. "So he did leave me? But how could he—why would he—? But I'm dreaming! This is all a dream, right? Are you telling me I'm lying in a comatose somewhere? I couldn't wake up?"

"**You're asking the wrong questions, Donna, and completely missing the point." **The man raised his hand and his large cloak appeared. With a tenderness she wasn't used to, he wrapped the cloak around her. She hung onto every word that came from him next. **"Recall the last moment you remember with the Doctor."**

Donna thought about it. "Bad Wolf Bay. I remember the beach with Rose and half-human version of the Doctor, the one in meta-crisis. I melded brains with that one."

"**And what else?"**

"The Doctor couldn't tell Rose he loves her. It's just three measly words to say and the idiot's running scared," Donna chuckled but remembering the Doctor fondly was starting to hurt her. "That's it. I think we left Rose and human Doctor in the beach. And...I can't..."

She would have collapsed but the man held her by the elbows.

"I don't understand," Donna blinked the tears away. "What happened to me?"

"**You couldn't have survived melding minds with a Time Lord, Donna." **The man allowed her to sit in the sand. Still facing her as he sat with her, he went on. **"The Doctor had no choice but to wipe the slate clean. He took away all your memories of him. It was the only way to make sure you don't die due to implosion."**

Filled with unexpected clarity and a new kind of pain, Donna could only weep.

"**You lived, Donna," **the man added. **"You forgot the Doctor and moved on."**

"But I still remember him!" Donna sobbed. "I remember everything."

"**But only when you dream."**

"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Donna wiped her tears. "What are you? Are you alien as well? Because, no offense, but you're about as human as the Doctor himself."

"**You called me Shaper."**

"That was what that lady told me to say to call for help."

"**That was my sister."**

"Nice meeting your family then," Donna sniffled. "But you're avoiding the question. And I'm not going anywhere so you might as well be straight with me."

"**I shape dreams. I rule them." **He sounded distant when he explained that. **"When everyone in the universe goes to sleep, I take care of the rest."**

"That's lovely." Donna remarked. And then she added. "A bit lonely, though?"

"**Why do you say so?"**

"You seem old. The Doctor's old too. And alone. Even when I'm with him, he's always hard to reach and hold onto." Donna glanced at the man, this Shaper. "I could only guess it's the same with you. Only worse. You say you live in dreams. So people who go here don't even remember you once they wake up, I assume? Same thing also happens to me?"

"**I rarely appear in people's dreams. I merely watch over them. Just a presence," **he was playing with the sand this time and Donna watched as the grains slipped through his fingers. **"I weave dreams but I don't get to be a part of them."**

"So why come to me?"

"**You're a special case."**

Donna chuckled. "Right. I'm the Doctor's companion. That makes me a special case."

"**You're special on your own, Noble one."** The man called Shaper reached out a hand to touch her cheek. His fingers brushed against the track of tears.

Donna laughed him off. "Don't start getting fresh with me now."

"**I apologize." **He withdrew his hand. From this angle, Donna almost thought he could be a sullen teenager with his barely brushed dark hair that sticks all over the place. And he's just so skinny everywhere! But perhaps that's how she likes to perceive him: defenseless and in need of contact from another person. Donna likes to think she has enough experience with lonely godlike creatures to make this conversation a good one.

"Okay, let's see what we have so far," Donna recited. "So in the dreams like this one, I remember the Doctor. But then I wake up and I forget him again?" she paused. "Well, what have I been up to out there when I'm awake? What sort of life am I living?"

"**You're married now. And you have a son. You named him Smith."**

Donna had to laugh. "Really? I'm someone's wife and mother? Bonkers!"

"**It's a good life, Donna."**

Donna shook her head. "So that means I'm…actually _happy_?"

The man buried his hands in the sand and when he lifted them up a few seconds after, the grains seemed to take various shapes in a dizzying speed that Donna could hardly keep up. It was like a reel of images that don't hold an picture long enough or anyone to decipher. As this happened, he explained to her. **"Your memories about the Doctor have been wiped out but nothing is truly forgotten. Remnants of your old life can leak into the veins of the Dreaming. It's your mind's way to mend the blank spaces. When you're here, you remember everything because it's how your subconscious heals and repairs itself while you're in repose."**

"If it's true that I'm healing through remembering stuff in dreams when doing so when I'm awake would kill me," Donna phrased her next words carefully. "Then tell me, Shaper, why does it hurt me? Just thinking about how I will never be able to remember the Doctor ever again unless I'm dreaming—you say that I have a good life now but...what I shared with the Doctor—those things are exceptional and I want them all back! Now you say I'm married and I got a kid out there. But when I come here, I just remember what I've lost all over again and IT HURTS SO MUCH so how, DAMMIT, how could I ever feel complete again?" The tears came even if she didn't want them to.

Shaper was quiet for awhile. **"You're human, Donna Noble. And with that humanity, you're always doomed to dream of better things."**

Donna rubbed her hands on her eyes and chuckled. "This is ridiculous. The Doctor and I could have found another way to fix me. He didn't have to make me forget."

"**Contrary to popular belief, the Doctor is limited," **Shaper interjected. **"I knew him when he was a boy. He had dreams and worlds within him you will never believe unless you glimpse them yourself. Such a curious child…"**

Donna snapped her head at him. "You knew him as a boy?"

"**We haven't stayed in touch, I'm afraid. But yes, I knew him in his youth." **The Shaper stood up and Donna followed suit. **"I knew him when he still had a home. A family. When he didn't have to run away and call himself another name."**

"Why haven't you kept in touch then? If you're friends—"

"**Friends?"** Shaper turned to her and looked quite angry which puzzled her. And then he looked away and muttered. **"Unlike the Doctor, I don't feel pathologically inclined to seek other creatures to accompany me because I'm scared."**

"And Matthew and Abel? Your sister?" Donna pressed on.

"**I didn't mean to mislead you so let me clarify: I don't seek the company of creatures who expire." **With that statement, he produced another cloak and covered himself with it. Donna wasn't going to let him go that easily, however.

"Expire? Well, sorry. Not everyone can be an immortal like you and the Doctor."

"**I didn't want you to misunderstand me."**

"Oh, I understand you, all right." Donna was going to storm off from this petulant "shaper of dreams" or whatever. Being powerful doesn't mean he's entitled to have a bad attitude. "I'm lucky that when I wake up I don't get to remember you at all. So tell you what, when I come here again on my beach, don't show up because I don't like to chat with someone who thinks he's better than everybody else."

The Shaper looked at her for a while with his eyes shining red. Donna didn't feel like she has anything to be afraid of. But then his expression softened once more and he said. **"I apologize. I knew you were very close to the Doctor. I disrespected him in your presence so it was understandable for you to react the way you did."**

Donna narrowed her eyes at him. "Fine. Apology accepted. And I really didn't mean it when I said we can't chat again. You're too serious but it beats talking to a bird."

"**Matthew's a queer fellow but he does care about you," **the man explained. **"The moment you run off, he got worried sick and contacted me."**

"Yeah, I suppose I should say sorry to him when I see him again. Abel too."

"**They'll be waiting for you at the beach."**

Donna nodded. "But wait, how does this work exactly? When I wake up, I mean? Does everything in my landscape just freeze until I get back?"

"**It would cease to exist temporarily until your next visit, yes."**

"But I'll see you again after this?" Donna didn't mean to sound so hopeful.

The Shaper paused, probably weighing his answer which only made Donna tense as she waited for a confirmation. In response, Shaper reached out a hand.

"**I look forward to another 'chat' with you, Noble one."**

* * *

"Peasant!" Smith was jumping up and down the bed. "Wake up, peasant!"

Donna cracked an eye open. "Oi, don't be rude. Mommy's very tired, you know."

"Don't care!" Smith stuck out his tongue and then he wrapped himself around Donna and buried his face on her chest. He giggled. The sensation and scent of him made Donna's eyes tear up for some reason. She raised her hand up and stared at it.

"What are you looking at, mommy?"

"Dunno," Donna replied. "I dreamt I was holding something. I don't remember."

"It's just a dream, mommy." Smith remarked. "Remember what you always tell me when I have bad dreams? You tell me they're not real. Yours probably isn't too."

"You're right," Donna answered. She ran her fingers through Smith's hair. He had a darker shade of red than Donna that it's almost brown in a certain light.

"Want me to count your stars?" Donna asked. Smith eagerly laid next to his mother and he lifted up his shirt so Donna could count his any new freckles. "Let's see here. Our last count was eighteen. Now look at that! You grew three more!"

"No way!"

"Oh yes, look!" Donna kissed him three times on where the freckles are supposed to be. "Do you want me to take a picture?"

As Donna reached for her phone, her husband Joey walked in. "Come on, trooper, we're going to be late for your first day!"

"Oh, the nursery school!" Donna remembered. "Is that today? Oh, I'm all over the place this week. I'm sorry."

"That's okay," Joey kissed her forehead. "You can stay in if you still feel under the weather. I think I actually did all right with the preparations. See? Show him, Smithey."

"Dad made me two sandwiches for lunch." Smith showed her his lunchbox. "Got some grape juice box there and an apple to keep the doctor away!"

Donna laughed. "Well, that reminds me, actually. Dr. Scott. Have you set up that appointment for the week after New Year's?"

"Yes, everything's been taken care of, don't worry." Joey pulled her up for an embrace. Smith wrapped his arm around Donna's leg as well.

"Okay, you two, be in your best behavior." Donna followed as Joey lifted Smith to carry him out the house. "I'll stop by the nursery school later, okay?"

Smith waved at her as soon as he got inside the car. "See you then, peasant!" And then he made noises that must have something to do with swords clashing. Donna laughed.

As soon as her favorite men have gone, Donna went back inside to clean for a while. When everything was absolutely spotless to her standard, she decided to go out to buy something different for dinner later. She may even ask her mum to help out even if she had to listen to the old woman scold her about the right nutritious intake for kids. It's been a while since she cooked with her mum. Smith does love his grandma's cooking.

Donna got dressed and locked the gate. While she waited to cross the opposite street, the old radio in the living room turned itself on. A barely recognizable song started playing. Donna must have sensed something so she almost looked back at the house but then a friend bumped into her and she started chatting with him.

Back at the house, the song playing on the old radio began to form words.

They were the kind of words that nobody remembers how to write anymore.

* * *

Donna was floating at sea with the large cloak wrapped around her.

"This isn't what I have in mind when I said I'd like to get a suntan!"

"**I'm sorry I kept you waiting," **The Shaper appeared before her.

"Oh, great," Donna interjected. "You're flying and I'm wet."

"**I wanted it to be a surprise."**

"Well, color me shocked!"

"**That's not what I meant," **he gestured behind her and Donna turned around.

A cruise ship materialized. She's never going to get used to things turning up conveniently like that. With an exasperated sigh, she remarked on the name of the cruise ship which was written in a cursive gold font. "_Liquid Dreams_? That's really clever, Shaper."

"**Thank you. I'm glad it pleased you.**" Whether or not he understood that she was mocking him, it was pretty difficult to say.

"**Now let's get you dry," **he reached out a hand and she grabbed onto it. She felt herself being lifted up until she landed gently onboard.

"Where are we sailing off to now?"

"**To the shore."**

"That's a bit anticlimactic."

"**Not until you see what's on the shore."**

_Liquid Dreams_ was a beautiful ship, Donna admits. It was pearly white and its sails are made of silk that glitter like small diamonds each time the light from the sunset hits. Donna gripped the ledge of the ship and watched in awe as the end of horizon disappears while they move closer to the shore. She has never been anything so tranquil. She breathed in the salty fragrance in the air and from the water and felt like she wasn't dreaming at all for the first time since she's been here. Everything felt like she could touch and hold onto—including the Shaper himself. He was looking particularly at peace himself as leaned on the other side of the ship, gazing at her. She tried not to look awkward while he stared but failed miserably because she kept brushing the strands of her hair away from her face because the damn wind keeps blowing and disarranging it. She would often cuss once in a while too while that's happening. So much for not looking awkward.

When they reached the shore, Donna leaped out of the ship and couldn't believe what she saw. "That is just rubbing it in!" she proclaimed.

"**You like building sandcastles so I thought I should make you one."**

"Yeah, but this is—"

"—**big enough for you to live in, yes."**

"No way!" Donna playfully punched him on the shoulder. He made a strange face and said nothing. "You mean this is my personal castle?"

"**Consider it as a housewarming gift."**

"And by 'housewarming gift', you mean the bloody castle is the house and the gift at the same time!" Donna giggled and started to run towards it. She stepped inside it. It was only one floor but it was definitely bigger than her room growing up. The width is multiplied by eight. "Talk about spacious! Now I'm impressed!" she pointed at the fireplace and started squealing in glee again. She turned to a corner and saw a double king-sized bed with green and blue velvet blankets and about sixteen small pillows in each. "How did you know that's what I want my bed to look like?" she asked him.

"**This is your landscape. Anything you conjure will materialize."**

"So kitchen here!" she pointed at a corner and a large yellow oven appeared next to the most immaculately arranged silverware and some stainless ceramic pots. Donna clapped her hands together and kept imagining. "Okay, a bookshelf of every _Cosmopolitan_ magazine ever published in that corner next to a mini-fridge filled with all kinds of pastries!" And there they were. "Oh, this is just fantastic!" She opened the fridge and devoured a slice of blueberry cheesecake with four bites as the Shaper watched. Donna then took a copy of a _Cosmo_ mag and sat down to a leatherback chair that just appeared as soon as she thought about it. She squealed again. "My dad used to have the exact same one!" she said.

"**You've made yourself home very easily."**

"Yeah, don't mind me." Donna was already browsing the magazine and on her second plate of cake. "Just pull up a chair or something if you want to stay."

The Shaper remained standing. **"I'm glad to see you very happy, Donna."**

She stopped reading to glance at him. "What do I call you aside from 'Shaper'? I mean, that's not exactly a name, is it?"

"**And so is 'Doctor' but you don't seem to mind."**

Donna rolled her eyes at him. "Blimey, just when I was trying to have a dynamite time, you go ahead and bring him up again."

"**I didn't mean to be insensitive—"**

"So? D'you got a proper name or what?"

He stood there almost motionless for a while. **"I have many names."**

"You mean titles?"

He paused. **"I've been called 'Morpheus' quite often these days."**

"I like that. Bit old-fashioned though. How about Morph? Or…Morphy?" Donna thought about it some more. "I know! Murphy! That seems all right. I mean, my son's name is Smith so it's obvious I like naming boys with last names. So that's what I'll call you."

"**That sounds fine," **he remarked.

Donna wasn't sure what else to say so she offered him a cookie. "Want one? It's chocolate chip. Everybody loves chocolate." She dangled it before him.

"**Thank you," **he managed to say as he took it from her but didn't eat it just yet. Instead, he looked around the place and said. **"I will visit you when I'm able again. But I'm afraid it can't be as frequent."**

"So you're leaving me now? That's fine. I got a bookshelf to digest." Donna paused. "But whatever do you mean it can't be frequent?"

"**If you familiarize yourself with me, some of your memories here in the Dreaming might leak out too," **Murphy explained.

"You mean I might start remembering my dreams?" Donna asked, staring at the plate of cake and suddenly feeling like she's losing her appetite. "Does that also mean I might remember the Doctor when I wake up?"

"**And you will die as soon as you do."**

"Dark," Donna remarked. "Very dark." She placed the magazine back at the shelf and turned to him, smiling. "How about you stay for a while and just, you know, talk."

"**We can't discuss the Doctor though."**

"Oh, I have enough of him," Donna leaned in to meet his gaze. "Let's talk about you." She snapped her fingers together and a tea tray appeared between them. "Man, I'm getting really good at this conjuring thing, yeah?"

"**I told you that you're special."**

"Careful, Murphy. I'm a married woman. Don't flirt." She poured him a cup.

"**I wasn't—"**

"Don't get tongue-tied now. I was just jesting. So tell me more about the Dreaming and what it is you do as a…weaver? That's what you said before, right?"

"**Yes,"** he replied and then he sipped his cup and was quiet again.

Donna chuckled. "Okay. And then what happened?"

"**I'm sorry," **he answered. **"It has been a while since I had a conversation with a mortal."** He paused. **"Well, that's not completely true. I had a drink with a friend of mine weeks ago—"**

"I thought you said you don't seek out creatures who _expire_?"

"**This one's a bit different. A special case. Like you."**

Donna laughed. "You know, Murphy. I don't think I'll ever get tired of you saying that I'm special. I'm almost starting to believe it myself."

"**Good then," **he remarked. **"Because I won't get tired telling you that you are." **He placed the cup back on the tray and cleared his throat. From this angle, it looked Donna as if he was indeed, _flirting_, in his weird Shaper-like way or something. She didn't know what to make of that, though. So she sipped her tea and tried not to be awkward.

"So. Got any girlfriends?" Donna blurted out and mentally slapped herself.

Awkward: check.

For a woman who has learned to conjure things and materialize them in her dreams, she has yet to learn verbal restraint and tact during conversations with strangers.

_Well, can't have them all,_ Donna thought.

Murphy just stayed silent for a moment and then he replied. **"I'm currently unattached." **He started to bite into the cookie at last. He's getting tense now which Donna doesn't consider a good sign. She needed to steer the conversation into a more casual and comfortable direction. But she just couldn't help herself.

"Who broke up with who?"

He shrugged. **"They always tend to leave first."**

Donna sighed, almost out of sympathy. Weighing her next words, she almost whispered. "It's hard to believe you never considered someone like the Doctor as a friend because, frankly, you might as well have the same life story."

"**We differ in a lot of ways," **he answered her with more confidence this time. **"Even as a boy he'd rather choose an adventure than a personal relation."**

"Oh?" Donna raised an eyebrow. "And you'd choose the latter?"

"**I'm not the outgoing type," **Murphy took another bite of the cookie. His face was so grim that Donna wondered if he was even enjoying the chocolate chip. **"And I always do—choose the latter, I mean. But it never goes well for me in the long run."**

Donna smiled silently even though she wanted to laugh. Not to mock him, but she just found the entire idea of someone like Murphy being a boyfriend...unsettling in a cute and uncomfortable and tempting sort of way—wait. She froze. That can't be right...

"Relationships end," Donna managed to reply. "The worst thing you could do is not try at all. Take it from a human. Better to have loved than not at all, as my kind would say."

Murphy was looking at her strangely now. She felt dumb but she didn't dare look away or he might see that as a sign of weakness. If she's going to be hanging around in the Dreaming, she wouldn't want anyone, alien, immortal or otherwise, to walk all over her. She knew better than to flinch. Her travels with the Doctor taught her to feel good about herself—to feel good about being human. The Doctor chooses his companions well, he told her once, and he may not verbalize it (not that she would want him to) but the Doctor surrounded himself with her kind because he envied humans. He envied how they handle endings better and how they can find the smallest satisfactions in things the Doctor would rather run away from. Donna sipped her tea and smiled to herself just thinking about that ridiculous alien in his blue box, alternating between being silly and being heroic effortlessly.

"**I think I should inform you, Donna," **Murphy was saying, **"that in the Dreaming, your thoughts, depending on intensity, can be reflected back at me."**

"Great," Donna was distracted at first and then she realized what he was trying to say and her cheeks colored. "Oh god, then stop reading my mind!"

"**I wouldn't invade your privacy like that,"** he explained. **"But the Dreaming is my realm which means that all thoughts, feelings, prayers and fantasies herein reveal themselves to me even if you do not wish them to be, and even if I don't mean to pry. I advise you to not fixate on a memory too much."**

"So you know what I was thinking about earlier then?"

"**Yes," **he frowned. **"You're recalling the Doctor. You remember him fondly."**

"I want to hate him," Donna admitted. "I think I have every right to."

Murphy said nothing and Donna wasn't sure how to make him understand and if it's even to her best interest to befriend yet another lonely immortal. Who's to say that he won't abandon her like the Doctor just did? Donna couldn't risk that kind of rejection again.

"**He didn't abandon you," **Murphy spoke up. Donna was about to scold him again but he went on, **"He even dreamt about you for weeks. You are the biggest regret of his life and he had many regrets—being who he is—but nothing that haunted him like this before. The Doctor allowed you to die. That's what he did when he made you forget. He killed you, along with the best parts of what you've become." **His starry eyes grew dim now as every word he spoke made Donna ache to touch him. The tea tray between them turned into sand without her realizing it.

Murphy kept going. **"He was there on your wedding day. He saw you in your happiest. It wounded him very deeply that you can never know him again. He tells himself that it was a necessary sacrifice. But in the brink of his death—right after he went back in time to see a teenage Rose Tyler—and just as he was about to end his tenth lifetime, it was you, Donna, that he thought about last."**

"He…" Donna was afraid to say it but she couldn't stop herself. "...died?"

"**He's on his eleventh reincarnation now."**

"Oh," Donna had nothing to add.

"**He met a little Scottish girl named Amelia." **Murphy waved his hand a handkerchief materialized. Donna took it. **"There were cracks in the universe that was eating her life and the Doctor knew that the only way to restore the missing pieces was if he offered himself in exchange. So Amelia forgot him too. And the Doctor ceased to exist for a time,"** he was staring into Donna's eyes with a sadness that made her realize that telling her stories about the Doctor was taking a toll on him too. But she didn't want him to stop and neither could he. **"But nothing is truly forgotten, as you know better now, and Amelia did remember the Doctor again. She remembered him on her wedding day." **He reached out his hand to touch hers and she instinctively held onto his. **"When he opened the doors to the TARDIS and he saw Amelia waiting for him in that dress—he remembered you as well. He almost thought that it was you who wished him back; that against all odds, you found a way back to him. And so every time he looks at Amelia since, he's always reminded of you."**

Donna shook her head in disbelief as a torrent of emotions washed over her that she thought she might pull away from this dream and go back to a life bereft of the Doctor as what was intended by the universe which stood between them for so long and seems to be winning all the time. And Murphy has sensed her thoughts once more, and he cupped her face with his hands and said, **"It's true that I don't keep in touch with him anymore and he'd avoid my realm if he could help it, but I did—I **_**do**_** care about the Doctor, and this is why I preserved your memories in the Dreaming. You were once the most important woman in creation and it doesn't seem fair for you to forget that."**

Donna tried to say something but only her tears could speak for her. She then buried her face in his chest and sobbed silently. Everything she had conjured earlier all melted into sand again and Donna focused on the Doctor this time. She thought about him and tried to search for him all across time and space even if her mind was far too limited for such a grand dream to take solid form. But Morpheus felt her grasping for the threads with a desperation that touched him so he thought about the Doctor himself back when he was just a child who couldn't always escape the nightmares; who wanted to see beyond the landscapes of Gallifrey. With both of them locked in an embrace, the Dreaming with its power to build and bridge worlds, engulfed them and forced time itself to bend to its will.

* * *

And just like that, with the sheer force of each other's will and imagination, Donna Noble and the Shaper of dreams found themselves inside the TARDIS.

Morpheus himself didn't think it was entirely impossible; of all the Endless he knew the great lengths and potentials of the human mind far better than his other siblings, but this was still a surprising turnout. He never meant to get carried away but Donna's forlorn feelings for the Doctor were quite infectious that he found it difficult not to share her dream. It was also the very first time in the longest stretch of time that Morpheus lent his power to enable a dreamer to defy the constraints of realities and he might reflect about this as soon as he gets them back into his realm. The Dreaming has been growing more potent since he left it unsupervised for seventy-five years and inviting the consciousness and memories of someone of Donna Noble's caliber has only made the substance of his realm more volatile.

Speaking of the said woman, Morpheus now watched as Donna approached a man sitting at the steps near the console. He was clearly absorbed with the book he's reading. Morpheus had never seen him wear spectacles before, at least not in a familiar way that made him look older than he's supposed to be.

"That's him, isn't it?" Donna was asking a question she already knew the answer to. "He looks...so different and..." she looked around. "Who's with him now? Is it still Amelia?"

"**He's alone,"** Morpheus answered. **"Amelia's gone."**

"Oh no," Donna muttered. She wanted to move closer, Morpheus could tell, but she resisted the urge. The man at the steps is a different Doctor and not the one she loved. "What's he doing now? I don't think the Doctor ever enjoyed reading books. I mean, he's a time traveler. He could be on his way visiting a world that's not fictitious."

"**If he intends to spend his Christmas this way, we shouldn't judge."**

Morpheus stared intently at the eleventh incarnate and decided that this one was more fragile than before. He didn't attempt to connect with his previous incarnations after the Time War, and Morpheus is certainly not about to start now. But looking at Donna and watching all her feelings for the Doctor reflected back, it's making Morpheus both sick with longing and nausea. On one hand, he's still very much filled with disdain for this last remaining Time Lord (a crime which Morpheus has yet to forgive him for), but on the other, he recalled the little Gallifreyan boy who persisted in staying in the Dreaming longer than he's supposed to; who once called him _father_ much to Morpheus' discomfort…and pride—

"**Donna," **he called out, not wanting to think about his own muddled feelings. **"You can't keep doing this to yourself. But I do take responsibility for allowing this to happen. Please," **he reached out his hand as he approached her. **"Let's go back."**

"What do you mean I kept doing this?" Donna looked at him in suspicion now.

"**Let me explain when we get back—"**

"No, I'm not falling for that again." Donna backed away from him.

Morpheus frowned, getting impatient. **"Fine. Do you remember Venice?"**

Donna nodded.

"**He was with Amelia in Venice not long ago,"** Morpheus explained curtly.

Donna's eyes widened. "So I can do that then? I can find him through the Dreaming if I try hard enough to reach out—"

"**For the sake of your new life with Smith, I forbid you not to."**

"Forbid me?" Donna looked angry.

"**I beg of you as well,"** Morpheus added. **"He can't be a part of your life anymore, Donna, and neither could you be a part of his."**

"But you said he's alone!" Donna protested. "On Christmas! The last time he was alone on Christmas, he almost did something terrible. It was a good thing I was there!"

"**Then you know he won't be alone for long,"** Morpheus assured her. **"Another will come and she will fit in just fine. Don't do this to yourself, Donna."**

"Shhh!" Donna snapped at him all of a sudden. "Do you hear that?"

Morpheus froze. He did hear it.

It was that song.

With no time to waste, he grabbed Donna's hand and transported them back to the Dreaming. Donna shook him away and was about to scream at him but he intervened first. **"When you return here, there will be a barrier which will prohibit you from attempting communication with the Doctor again. Do not test me on this, Donna Noble." **He placed his hand under her chin and looked into her eyes.

"He needs me, Murphy," Donna was pleading to him now. "He needs—"

"**What both of you need is closure," **Morpheus said. **"As soon as this conversation ends, you will wake up and forget the Doctor as intended. You won't go looking. You won't hear that song again." **He took the grains of sand from his pouch and blew it into her eyes.** "Live well, Donna Noble..."**


	3. III Night Sky

**III. ****Night Sky**

* * *

_"I walk across the dreaming sands under the pale moon, through the dreams of countries and cities, past dreams of places long gone and times beyond recall." _~Dream, _Brief Lives, _volume 7

* * *

It occurred to Oneiros that the boy was hardly the most graceful of his species, and everything about him was very arbitrary and almost without redemptive qualities. As Oneiros watched him struggle to maintain decorum in front of his teachers, it's hard not to notice that the boy was in a very pitiful state indeed. His choice of wardrobe sans the required headdress (which revealed his unkempt hair that did not help ease his embarrassment) and right down to his mannerisms and ineloquent speech was just disastrous. It didn't bother Oneiros, though. Unfortunately, his teachers have a different opinion and they took immediate offense, scolding him for his lack of punctuality which to them seems to be his most unforgivable flaw of all. The dream lord would not contest that. After all, in what place in creation is it ever acceptable for a time lord to be tardy?

After the much needed, though hardly deserving, verbal punishment, the boy spent the rest of the class with his eyes downcast, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible to his superiors. He carefully flattened his hair with his hands and looked almost like an abandoned puppy from where the dream lord sat. Oneiros couldn't help but watch him once in a while (considering the lessons for today did not particularly interest him).

The dream lord considered it routine now to attend the classes of the Gallifreyan youthfolk for some weeks now. It was a gracious tribute that Oneiros felt was more than appropriate, considering the affinity he shared with the Time Lord race since the old days of Rassilon. He wanted to observe how their race has flourished since then, particularly among the younger generation, and so these annual visits are quite special for Oneiros.

The boy finally caught him staring but Oneiros didn't feel that he needed to avert his gaze. At first the boy instinctively looked away but curiosity must have gotten the better of him and he was now sneaking glances at the dream lord as well. When the classes finished and everybody was packing up, Oneiros ended up conversing with the teachers. While he did, the dream lord noticed the boy lurking at the doorway for a while. When he turned his attention toward him, the boy managed a meek smile and nodded at him as if to say hello (or possibly goodbye). Oneiros nodded back which seemed to please the boy because he now broke into a grin and then he hurried off, probably to catch up with the other boys.

* * *

As a clumsy specimen quite unheard of for a Gallifreyan native, the boy was obviously a subject of interest among his elders. Oneiros listened to their criticisms and insights but hardly shared their opinions. For as long as the dream lord could remember, he had always sympathized with outcasts and misfits. There was something about their dreams too that Oneiros found to be a poetic miracle to see unfold. Whenever they cross the thresholds of his realm, their dreams take the wildest forms that are more often than not unique and would have remained inconceivable until such delicate substance took flesh for themselves and become tangible entities. These organisms made a home in the several membranes of the Dreaming and it never fails to surprise Oneiros how potent and decisively unpredictable they've been multiplying and infecting anything they came in contact with.

The boy continued to commit mistakes which are mostly mundane, but it highlighted the carelessness of his nature and served only to further alienate him from his peers. As for their share of the burden, the elders could only afford to express either displeasure or astonishment. Their lack of compassion and lowered expectations were proving to be counterproductive as far as the boy's welfare is concerned.

On the eve of his departure, Oneiros was preparing himself for another long journey to pay tribute to the next planets on his list when he was approached by no other than the disappointing child. He was a lot gawkier and mild-mannered than the dream lord expected as the boy attempted to make their conversation both respectful and casual.

"If it pleases you, Lord Shaper," the boy mumbled, pulling at the sleeves of his robes with a self-consciousness that might have been distracting to most people. But not to an Endless. Oneiros had this share of apprehensive followers who fidget and sweat, and often say the most indecent things in his presence. He has learned to tolerate such behaviors.

The boy cleared his throat and spoke louder this time. "I wish to bid you a safe trip to the galaxies. And to hand you some documents I've been working on." He held up a scroll that was tied by a blue string. "I have some...writings here that I would like to confide in you, most beloved ruler of dreamscapes. I was hoping you would—"

Oneiros unceremoniously opened the parchment much to the boy's apparent shock. He perused through the contents and took note that the boy's handwriting in high Gallifreyan was surprisingly more fluent than his way of speech, and his wordings and stories are quite astute. Oneiros only stopped reading so he could look the boy in the eye.

"**These are uncanny findings and theories," **he remarked.** "You must show these to your teachers. Perhaps they would re-consider their judgments."**

"I don't care about what they think of me," Uncharacteristically petulant, the boy shoved his hands into the pockets of his robes and almost pouted. "I care about yours."

"**It's presumptuous for you to say that. Their opinions should matter greatly to you…"** the dream lord paused, trying to remember the boy's name.

"Thé," the boy answered, sensing his thoughts. He stepped forward. "You can call me Thé. It's a syllable that won't present any difficult in remembrance."

Oneiros nodded approvingly, inspecting him with more care then looked back at the parchment in his hand. **"And what do you wish me to do with this, Thé?"**

"I'm honestly not sure," Thé answered, "You're different. And that's comforting." He pulled out his hands from his pockets and showed Oneiros his palms while he talked. "I stand out for the worst reasons in the academe. And there are better and more promising time lords than I, Lord Shaper. I should focus on becoming a more qualified scholar of my field but such a challenging work has left me hollow. I dream of things I'm not supposed to most of the time. I'm trying to get them out of my head but they persist to overcrowd." He tapped at his head then and sighed in frustration. "I shouldn't rant and vent to you, merciful Shaper, but you ought to understand this better than my so-called teachers."

He chuckled grimly and then groaned to himself. "Oh, how I long for horizons of new shades! For everything is banal in my homeland now. Even the way the second sun would shine across those mountains over there; it grows dull before my eyes when I see it every waking day." He looked almost in pain as he went on. "I used to love the silver leaves and how they burst into flames as the sun engulfs them in its heated embrace."

Thé closed his eyes for effect as if he's imagining them right now. And then he opened his eyes again and Oneiros watched as the passion in his eyes grew dim. He almost felt sorry for the boy. Thé went on. "But all these beautiful things have become commonplace for me, for my heart lies elsewhere new and different." Thé smiled softly at him this time, taking small steps forward. "And you're new and different to me, Lord Shaper, if you do not consider it too shameful for me to comment upon your rarity and beauty…" With tenderness and caution, he reached out to touch Oneiros' cheek.

It was a gesture that was foreign to the dream lord himself. It had been a while since a creature of flesh initiated a more physical contact. Thé's fingers didn't stay that long which showed that even he was not accustomed to such violation of space. He withdrew his hand as if he was burned. For a moment, Oneiros felt the warmth himself and wondered why the sensation of the boy's hand lingered against his skin longer than he expected.

"Forgive my insolence, mighty dreamland-ruler and king of stories," Thé would have gone down on his knees to show penance but Oneiros placed his hands on the boy's shoulders and told him to stand upright again.

"**You did not offend me with your praise, Thé**,**" **the dream lord replied. **"On the contrary, you show more promise and potentials than you are given credit for."**

"Do you think so?" Thé looked away with a timid expression on his face, "It's not that I question the sincerity of your own praises, Lord Shaper, but I'm not used to such encouraging words, you see. Besides, I just couldn't shake the feeling that there may be something I'd rather be doing…" he trailed off, looking more lost than ever.

Oneiros tried to hear him out, to understand the desperation in his pleas and desires. But the boy is foolish and he needed direction and guidance which have been deprived by his betters. And yet all the dream lord could offer are words which he hoped could enliven him and restore his faith. **"You are a son of Gallifrey, and your race can travel through time and space. You are guardians and innovators, philosophers and scientists. Do these things not excite you in some way?" **He did not wait for an answer for his rhetorics and the boy seemed smart enough to understand that they weren't exactly questions. Oneiros placed the scroll inside his garments and then cupped the boy's cheeks so he could look into them. Thé gulped down and listened attentively to the next words that came out of the dream lord. **"You have a gift you can share to the universe but you can't see it in your horizon for now. Because of your limited perspective, it's all a matter of peripheral sight."**

Oneiros lowered his hands and placed them on the boy's shoulders again, still maintaining eye contact.** "Youth, tragically, makes anyone restless but with age comes a certain understanding about the value of everything, and you will learn how to make decisions with temperance and restraint." **

He then gave him a small smile to show that he believed in the best outcome for whatever's in store for the boy. **"Give it time. As a time lord, you will know the truth in those words more than you could ever hope for."**

Thé fell silent for a long time. When Oneiros withdrew his hands, Thé reached out to hold them and squeeze. He couldn't look into the dream lord's eyes but his grip was strong yet almost needy. Oneiros recognized instantly how alone the boy has felt for years. Solitude is a consequence reserved only for the genius, a madness that festers in the mind and takes control. For a while it would seem that Thé will never let him go.

But he did loosen his grip and took a step back. When Thé still kept silent, he took that as his cue to leave but before he went his way, he glanced at the boy one last time.

"**If you begin to feel restless again," **he reminded Thé. **"You can always find solace in my realm, little time lord."**

Thé's eyes widened. That seemed to cheer him up. "Do you mean that? Truly?"

"**I do not deny any dreamer passage," **Oneiros remarked. **"Let alone one who wants new and different horizons to explore."**

"But how can I access your realm then, Lord Shaper?"

Oneiros answered. **"On the fifth night, I will pay you a visit in your slumber."**

"It's settled then." Thé grinned. "I shall dream of you."

It was a very awkward yet sincere expression on his face and yet Oneiros decided that he would like to see it more often.

* * *

Four decades passed since the reluctant teenage time lord befriended Oneiros, third of his immortal kind. These years simply became sand in the Dreaming realm where the persistent youth would linger in its secret hallways, regardless the inconvenience and frequency that it burdened both of them with. Their meetings increased most especially whenever Thé is plagued by nightmares. They were always sudden, ruthless and rabid at times. And it was the dream lord alone who found ways to make the boy's monsters bearable to live with.

With so much time spent together, they began to share the same vein of loneliness, and one is able to fill the gaps of the other easily, much to Oneiros' discomfort.

Their friendship didn't fit well at first but it worked like clockwork once they were both able to accept its inevitability. The dream lord never had friends outside of his family before, and his siblings were never the sociable sort. Perhaps it's the unfamiliarity and newness of Thé that only made Oneiros wish to know him more. And the willingness in which Thé explored the expanse of the sand realms endeared him to the king of stories.

For a species that's able to regenerate and rewrite the core of their beings after every death, Thé felt constant enough for the dream lord who abhorred change more than anything. And it was in the soft places of the Dreaming where day and night made no difference that the time lord had gained himself a home in a way Gallifrey has never been.

Once Oneiros felt the need to disclose the strength of his feelings for Thé and told him the story about his sibling Desire whose betrayal ended their kinship. Although he was quite a proud creature, Oneiros was able to confide that Thé had healed him somehow, which the time lord was more than joyous to hear. He was too bashful to articulate in length the extent of his own feelings, however, and could only acknowledge the depth of his own sentiments by taking Oneiros' hand and giving it a tight, reassuring squeeze, as if to say that he's never going to leave his new friend.

"I intend to be friends with you for a long time," the boy announced.

"**And for your kind, a long time could be immeasurable."**

"Yes," Thé grinned. "One could say it might even be 'forever'."

Oneiros believed him naturally. A time lord almost lives as long as an Endless, and he had no doubt that Thé intends to keep his promise. Still, everyone expires one way or another while the Endless go on. In spite knowing that, Oneiros did not want to care. When he squeezed back Thé's hand, it seemed to be the only thing that mattered then.

The covenant they shared at that moment will endure but it was still fragile and may break if wielded unwisely. It was also filled with a foreboding they could not pronounce or make sense of yet. But whatever was about to transpire, they would not speak about it again until several years later when the ending to their forever came too soon.

* * *

Like all brevities in the universe, the boy soon grew up to be a self-made man, and a formidable time lord, who later had a family of his own to look after. Though older and less fanciful now, there was still a part of him that never stopped yearning for bigger skies, so the dream lord enriched this delicate membrane until such immensity and proportion can no longer be contained in such a faulty vessel. It needed a suitable outlet in tangible form, one that's compatible to Thé's state of mind and imagination.

The Gallifreyans crafted a wonderful masterpiece in the machinery they call TARDIS. It was a scientific and magical instrument that was everything Thé deserved to posses, and Oneiros was more than generous to bestow it. Thé took his granddaughter Susan with him, a girl of impressionable age who shared his inquisitiveness and sense of adventure.

They met one last time in the soft places where the shore meets the horizon. Thé spotted Oneiros standing barefoot on the sand. He took off his own shoes and approached the dream lord. He spoke up first. "I could never thank you enough for the opportunity."

He now possessed the voice of a man who knows where he's going and is ready to accept where life will lead him. Oneiros was struck by a strange kind of sadness when he realized it. "And thank you for this marvelous craft," Thé added as he placed a tender hand on the TARDIS. "I call her Sexy."

"**In private, I hope**," Oneiros remarked. After a long pause, he said. "**Your nightmares will still follow you around so you must understand that there's nothing left to do but to run**."

"You watch me run then," Thé said with a nervous chuckle.

They looked at one another, unable to break eye contact. As immortals, they're no strangers to prolonged awkward silences, but Oneiros decided to speak up. "**You don't need a time machine to navigate the Dreaming**." He placed a hand on Thé's shoulder. "**All you have to do is to find a quiet place somewhere, close your eyes and let your mind drift back**." He withdrew his hand but not his gaze. **"And I'll be here."**

"Quite right too," Thé answered with a smile. He reached out to touch Oneiros' cheek and the dream lord allowed it to linger this time. It occurred to Oneiros that though he may no longer resemble the boy he adored, he still had the same passion brewing in those eyes. The dream lord simply knew that he will recognize it no matter how many times he'd change his face, as all time lords ought to do to trick death.

Before stepping inside his TARDIS, Thé couldn't help but mention their memorable conversation from the past. "You told me that I healed you once, Lord Shaper," he remarked. "Henceforth, I shall become the 'Doctor'. It sounds a bit vain and pompous, I know, but…" he looked slightly away before he continued. "Well, after meeting you, I think might have acquired a sense of purpose for healing and saving lives, do you not agree?"

It was only with silence that Oneiros approved of the title. He watched Thé closed the TARDIS doors and disappear. Weeks became months, and months piled up after another until the several lifetimes his favorite time lord lived came and went in a pace Oneiros could not keep up with, let alone stay interested in. The faces of this Doctor blurred and evolved before him and only the memories of the boy he once knew stayed the same.

Thé's visits to his realms were becoming rarer until he simply did not dream about Oneiros anymore. Perhaps living different lives has made it very easy for him to forget how much it meant to be friends with the dream lord once—and never again be friends, as far as Oneiros is concerned. Out of spite, he also did not intervene in Thé's travels with the companions who came after Susan, and whenever Thé—this arrogant Doctor—would call to him at nights when there's no hope left. Proud and dismissive, he would not answer back.

It's clear that the dream lord no longer has a place to claim in Thé's life, and he has no intention of being welcomed back into it again.

* * *

A time lord never stays old and is blessed with thirteen lifetimes.

Thirteen rebirths.

Thirteen chances to start and end things.

It was a bargain that her brother Dream once asked her opinion for, but Death wasn't interested or invested in the intricate workings and beauty of life in those ancient days, and quietly found the time lord species to be an abomination. Everyone should get one lifetime only. No race should be an exception. But evolution can be tricky and biased, it may seem, and so it allowed the time lords multiple lives which understandably irked her, the mother of beginnings and endings, and who likewise believed that paying the piper its due is the way the cosmos should work, always.

But the long centuries of granting demise has finally softened Death until she was no longer as exacting and cold-blooded. She did eventually learn to enjoy and love the symbol and meaning of her existence. And by embracing the sublime power she held, she found a purpose unique only to an Endless, with all its turn of seasons, mortality dances, and fading sound of wings. Once Death accepted that she is finality, life for every creature in the cosmos finally became more worth living for.

She felt closer to Dream afterwards and their kinship has endured everything. So entwined were they during the most subtle moments that it surprised the rest of their siblings. She came to him now, prepared to lend him her strength.

"Hello, brother." She greeted him with a peck on the cheek.

Her stubborn brother Dream—deemed Morpheus these days—only nodded once at her direction. Death always knew when he's dwelling darkly on something again which is why she wanted to address the problem at hand now. Morpheus was sitting at the steps of his throne and his cape was folded on his side. He held the ruby red stone on his hand.

"What are you trying to get a glimpse of?" she inquired.

"Unimportant," he replied.

Death rolled her eyes and sat beside him to get a closer look at the stone but instead of seeing an entity, she heard a voice instead. She knew who it was for the song was bittersweet and desperate and only the most solitary of beings resonate with that melody. She regarded her brother with a worried expression. "So he calls to you. It has been…"

"Several lifetimes," Morpheus finished for her. "Lives I never much cared for."

"Won't you answer?"

But she knew that he wouldn't.

"I was about to cast a barricade so I don't have to listen to him whine."

Death pursed her lips together, careful not to express her disapproval. A thousand or a million years wouldn't make a difference to her brother; an old wound still hurts.

"Not even a little curious?" When he gave her a slightly angry look that strangers would cower away from, Death simply smiled at him as she placed her palm against the stone. The warmth of it was excruciatingly overpowering which took Death aback for a second. She glanced at Morpheus and shuddered at his apparent calmness. She's too familiar with him to know better though. The more he conceals his feelings, the deeper and violent they truly are. Unable to bear his reticence any longer, Death pressed both of her hands against his as they closed around the ruby stone. When they looked across, she realized that they were inside the TARDIS and that the Doctor (Death could clearly see it was his tenth incarnate and that the face was younger than she was used to) was watching a redheaded woman frantically recite a string of words in an automated speed that was inhuman. Something was broken within her mind.

Death can smell it which is why she was already walking towards her. The dying always gives off a scent that beckons her to take their hands.

But before she could call the woman's name (it was quite exquisite too; she was called Noble), the Doctor placed his hands on her temples and apologized.

Donna pleaded. "But I was going to be with you…forever."

Death knew the way the rhyme has always been but it still cuts deep to hear them say it. These beautiful creatures living in borrowed time; who always realize things too late.

"Enough," it was Morpheus. He was still sitting in the shadows. "I've seen enough."

Death was beside him before he even asked and then she wrapped her hands around his again where the stone rests. They were back in the Dreaming.

"You had to see him some time," she reasoned out. "Now's a good time than ever."

"He calls to me, louder than before." Her brother rose and took his cloak. "I wish he'd stop. It's almost a millennium. Isn't he getting too old for such games?"

"He's lost things only you can understand, Morpheus," Death slowly approached him and brushed her fingers through his hair. She leaned in closer. "Ten lives have made him more vulnerable than he lets on. He hasn't really changed. He's still that boy, brother. The boy you loved who never stopped needing you."

"You're wise, sister dearest," he answered. "But in this case, you err grievously."

Before he could walk out of her for good, Death called to him one last time and said. "Look into his dreams. Share the space in his head where time rots differently than the rest. Take a closer look on his soft places again, brother. Share his grief."

Her brother remained deathly still but she knew she stated her case strongly enough so she learned to walk away first. She sensed that Morpheus was still in the same exact spot, stuck between regrettable decisions in the past and second chances at present.

* * *

For nights hence, Morpheus has watched both of them dream.

Hers were about luscious green meadows and a child whom she chased after all day long in the fields. The dream lord watched her dance and play with the child. She's beautiful too in an earthly but unknowable sense, with red hair flowing everywhere. When she laughed, it wasn't entirely graceful or pleasant to listen to. It even pierced his ears sometimes but it sounded genuine. Like the rest of her, that laughter was shameless. If Morpheus could ever fall in love with a singular sound, it would be that laughter.

His dreams, however, were like they've always been since he has known him, and instead of meadows and shrill sounds of joy, they were made of steep cliffs and the loneliest songs. And he's always running. He'd leave imprints on the membranes of the Dreaming like tracks of tears. It was inconvenient for Morpheus but he could not ignore the restless beckoning from the time lord for long. Almost at his limit, Morpheus decided to put at end to the nightmare races not because he felt sorry for this arrogant, pitiful Doctor; but because the rest of the soft places are being overcrowded by dangerous energies. And he's to blame.

With an indignant resignation, Morpheus sprinkled sand on the Doctor's dreamscape so it would expand and meet hers halfway, this lost companion. As soon as the bridge solidified, he stepped into the green meadows and caught up with her.

She didn't seem to care. In fact, she may even believe that he wasn't out of place at all; that he's always been a part of her own dreamscape. So she took both his hands and they danced with the child. They talked and laughed; they would even revisit old travels in distant planets and then come back in time for tea. It's as if he never abandoned her. It's as if he allowed her to stay. Morpheus found it painful to watch their dreamed adventures unfold, to see their minds seek out one another and meld as one every night just for a chance to see the stars again. They created a powerful dream, one Morpheus feared would be too impossible to contain in the shores of the Dreaming. But nevertheless, he did not dare intervene. They were happy again, safe with each other. The Doctor-Donna.

Morpheus did not particularly enjoy the charade, though, nor did he ever approve. But it was better than to hear the Doctor call for help in his slumber, and infinitely more acceptable than to feel her sadness echo across the sands as she yearns to return to her Doctor. It only pains the dream lord in ways he did not expect. But now Morpheus keeps finding her in tears lately especially since she abruptly lost his connection in the soft places (once he incarnated for the eleventh time). She was beginning to fade from his realm too because the memories of her Doctor are no longer there to anchor her. Death has come for her then in that quicksand, urging her to let go and wake up—for her to forget again. Morpheus did not want her to. He didn't understand why except that her laughter became the soul of the Dreaming for far too long now that he couldn't imagine parting with it. The Doctor might have rid himself of her but Morpheus would not.

It was a great thing then that she asked for him to save her.

He came to her aid more quickly than he anticipated. At first Morpheus only wanted to guide her out of the desert plains. He did not mean to give her an opportunity to uncover his history with the Doctor, nor to allow her the chance to understand the inner workings of his realm. He certainly did not mean to encourage her with more small talk, to invite her into a home he built himself so she could live inside it. Morpheus had taken in strays lots of times before but she was different. She had gotten under his skin, exposing his own weakness and forlorn thoughts about the Doctor—his Thé.

Morpheus never meant to care again. He didn't want to forgive. He couldn't just forget how much it hurts; how much it still hurts. And when she broke down the barricades yet again to seek out the Doctor, he almost failed to intercept. But he saw the way she looked at him and how deep her affections are. But the Doctor made a choice to discard her. Morpheus didn't know why he crumbled when he attempted to tell her the truth. Instead he consoled her with more false hope, made her believe that the Doctor has done her a favor but Morpheus knew better. The Doctor destroyed parts of Donna she could never restore again. It was the Dreaming that keeps these parts inside her intact.

Morpheus knows better than everyone else the consequences for mortals who entangle themselves with creatures like the Doctor; like he of the Endless. He must spare her from future horrors but then he couldn't stop thinking about Thé—no, the Doctor—by himself reading a book on Christmas Eve.

Strangely, that version of him almost looked like the awkward boy from Gallifrey from long ago, who dreamed of Morpheus and became his friend.

The dream lord realized that he had already forgiven him after all.

It also occurred to Morpheus that perhaps he can make Donna Noble laugh again.

* * *

The Doctor always lies about his age and he's at the point in his life where he can't even remember why. But he remembered being sixteen far too keenly; on that day in Gallifrey when he fell in love for the first time. The object of his affections was cloaked with many names but the Doctor always loved calling him Oneiros the most. But not to his face though for he was young then, and lacked the confidence to pursue the desires of his heart more blatantly. He was afraid of Oneiros too, that sometimes he wondered if whether he feared how much he loved him or loved how much he feared him. The Lord Shaper of Dreams wasn't one to spare a kind word or to express himself in compromising ways, but the Doctor knew—when he was just Thé back then—that Oneiros was fond of him as well.

But it had been a dream in the end. It had always been a dream—and one he could not have again. No matter how many times he slept he couldn't find a passage back to the sands of suspended time where his most cherished lived. He tried to use the TARDIS to land on it once and it almost tore the interface apart. He could take a hint, so he didn't try again.

But this time it was Oneiros who found him in the beach. He lay there on wet sand, clutching his sonic screwdriver. The Lord Shaper hovered above him, a peculiar dark thing in the sunset horizon. He couldn't sit up but he could still reach out his hands. His fingers grazed the hem of his cloak of fire that he thought that one touch would be enough to burn him. It didn't, but it was painful all the same. Oneiros came down and looked down at him with those mighty, cold eyes as if he couldn't see the Doctor at all. But then he leaned down and placed his pale bony fingers across his chest and his two hearts pounded like the endless beating of drums. That harsh sound. It cuts through bone.

When the Doctor sat up he saw a woman walking towards him.

"Rose?" he called out. _No, it's Martha. Wait…Sara Jane?_

"It's time," she said. Her hand was outstretched.

Oneiros placed his hands around him and helped him up. "Funny," the Doctor said. "First time you ever embrace me and it's only so you could give me away."

"**You were never mine,"** the Lord Shaper answered.

"I wanted to…" He could feel every vein in his body burst but he tried to keep talking. "I wanted to belong to you."

"**No,"** Once again, the dream lord denied him. **"This had been your home when Gallifrey wasn't yet you still left. I understand better than you think, and perhaps no place in the cosmos will ever make you stay."**

He would have argued with that but it was the truth. "Don't do this."

The woman kept her hand outstretched but the Doctor held onto his friend.

"It's time," she repeated.

"But," the Doctor loosened his grip on Oneiros so he could face her. He took a step forward and stared into those familiar eyes. "I don't want to go."

This time the woman outstretched both hands and smiled. The Doctor took another step. And another. His body was caving in while the rest of his extremities throbbed. When he touched her hands with his, blinding light cracked through his fingers, melting them away. He closed his eyes now as the tears burned his cheeks and halos of more light covered his entire face. He couldn't see the woman anymore but he could feel her everywhere at once, cradling him, lulling him to sleep like a mother would.

Amidst the deafening singing and the drums, he heard a voice calling.

_Rose? It could be Martha or Sara Jane_—

—no, it's her.

He remembers. The dreams. The child.

_Donna_.

Her name echoed within him. _Donna Noble._

It was a harsh sound that wounded until he was no longer able to hear.


End file.
